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SERS based determination of vanillin and its methyl and ethyl derivatives using flower-like silver nanoparticles on a silicon wafer

Microchimica Acta volume 186, Article number: 302 (2019) Cite this article

Abstract

A surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) method is described for the determination of vanillin, methyl vanillin and ethyl vanillin at trace levels. Flower-like silver nanoparticles on a silicon wafer are used as the SERS substrate, and the analytes can be specifically and non-destructively recognized by their specific Raman bands. The molecules can be recognized rapidly by identifying the characteristic bands. The SERS spectra of vanillin (C8H8O3) were used as mid-contrast, and specific bands of methyl vanillin and ethyl vanillin (C9H10O3) were acquired at 775 cm−1, 1350 cm−1 and 1282 cm−1, 1382 cm−1, respectively. In addition, by using an improved principal component analysis (PCA) algorithm, the organic molecule can be quantitatively determined. Dissolved in water, vanillin, methyl vanillin and ethyl vanillin still can be detected at a concentration of 10−8 M, at which their characteristic Raman peaks are still visible. The method was successfully applied to the determination of vanillin in milk powder products.

Vanillin can be identified at trace levels by laser irradiation of milk and by using flower-like silver nanoparticles as the surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrate. Vanillin and its methyl and ethyl derivatives can be quantitatively analyzed by the principal component analysis (PCA) algorithm.

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Acknowledgments

The Project was supported by the National Science Foundation for Young Scholars of China (Grant No.31000316). The Project was supported by the Application Research Program of Commonweal Technology of Zhejiang Province (No. 2014C37042). The Project was supported by the Zhejiang province university students in scientific and technological innovation activities (No. 2016R409011), and the Science and technology project of Zhejiang Province (No. 2016C33026).

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Affiliations

  1. College of Optical and Electronic Technology, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou, 310018, China

    Pei Liang, Yong Feng Zhou, Ying Chang, Qian-min Dong, Jie Huang, Zu-gang Liu & Shang-zhong Jin

  2. Key Laboratory of Horticultural Plant Biology, Ministry of Education, College of Horticulture & Forestry Sciences, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, 430070, China

    De Zhang, Zhi Yu & Dejiang Ni

  3. College of Optical Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai, 200093, China

    Jie Huang

  4. School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou, 310018, China

    Bin-qi Rao & Bo-yang Chen

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  1. Pei Liang
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  2. Yong Feng Zhou
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  3. De Zhang
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  9. Zhi Yu
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  10. Dejiang Ni
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  11. Zu-gang Liu
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Correspondence to Pei Liang.

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Electronic supplementary material

The main peaks in vanillin’s SERS spectra, methyl vanillin’s SERS spectra and ethyl vanillin’s SERS spectra in the 600~1700 cm−1 range and their assignments are list in Table S1-S3.

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Liang, P., Zhou, Y., Zhang, D. et al. SERS based determination of vanillin and its methyl and ethyl derivatives using flower-like silver nanoparticles on a silicon wafer. Microchim Acta 186, 302 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00604-019-3424-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00604-019-3424-7

Keywords

  • Organic molecule recognition
  • Vanillin
  • Principal component analysis
  • Quantitative assay